Provenance

• 1879: Thomas Way (1837-1915), London;
• 1905: sold by Way's son, Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) to Charles Lang Freer (1856-1919), Detroit;
• 1919: bequeathed by C. L. Freer to the Freer Gallery of Art.

It may have been among pictures dispersed at the time of Whistler's bankruptcy, as later described by Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913):

'the other canvasses, mostly portraits ... more or less destroyed [by Whistler] at the time of his bankruptcy before he handed them over as part of his "assets" to his creditors ... rejected by the auctioneers as unsaleable, and ... bought by a picture dealer for my father.' 1

Exhibitions

It was not exhibited in Whistler's lifetime.

By the terms of C. L. Freer's bequest to the Freer Gallery of Art, the painting cannot be lent.